Northwest Arkansas educators say farewell after decades of service

Steve Long (from left), a Rogers High School teacher, visits Thursday with Lynn Sciumbato and Bob Ross, both retired teachers. Long is retiring after teaching science (mostly chemistry) for 41 years.
Steve Long (from left), a Rogers High School teacher, visits Thursday with Lynn Sciumbato and Bob Ross, both retired teachers. Long is retiring after teaching science (mostly chemistry) for 41 years.

Beverly Loomis, 63, teared up Wednesday as she neared the end of her final day as a kindergarten teacher at Springdale's George Elementary.

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Beverly Loomis, kindergarten teacher at George Elementary School in Springdale, passes out pizza to her kids Wednesday during the last day of school party. She will retire this year after a career of more than 40 years, including 16 years at George Elementary.

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Beverly Loomis, a kindergarten teacher at George Elementary School in Springdale, puts a pie in the face of principal Annette Freeman Wednesday during an assembly on the last day of school. Loomis will retire this year after a career of more than 40 years, including 16 years at George Elementary.

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Karen Rosso, a retiring teacher at Root Elementary School, is seen Friday at the school in Fayetteville. Rosso attended Root Elementary School from first through sixth grade as a student and is now retiring from the school after teaching there for 36 years.

"It doesn't seem like it's been 42 years," she said. "Every year you get new kids. There's always something to learn."

Teaching tips

Tips for teachers from Beverly Loomis, a George Elementary teacher who retired after teaching kindergarten for 42 years:

• “A child who’s hard to love is usually a child who needs it most.”

• “A child knows how you feel about them.”

• “You have to have high expectations. ‘We’re a college-bound kindergarten class.’”

• “The teacher may be the only constant in the child’s life.”

• “You’ve got to look at the whole child and understand where that child is coming from.”

Source: Beverly Loomis

But it was time to retire, she said.

The end of a school year brings lots of goodbyes. Children bid farewell to classmates and teachers. Some leave knowing it's their last time in a particular school. They look forward to middle school, junior high school, high school or college.

Dozens of Northwest Arkansas educators also say farewell and leave school for good. About 140 employees -- from office assistants to superintendents -- are retiring this year from the Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale school districts.

The list of retirees includes Loomis, who's known for rallying community partners and teachers for an ongoing Christmas project for the children, and Bill Kirker, a fourth-grade teacher in Bentonville with a knack for restoring antique furniture.

Steve Long, a Rogers High School chemistry teacher who made tie-dye shirts with his students, is retiring after 41 years. Karen Rosso, a second-grade teacher at Root Elementary, will hand over the operation of a school postal service she started 25 years ago.

From double-knit pants to blue jeans

Loomis started teaching kindergartners in Warren in 1974. She remembers wearing green double-knit pants, a red top, and a printed green, black and red jacket. She made sure to cover her hips; schools were just starting to allow female teachers to wear pants to school in addition to dresses.

On her last day at George Elementary, where she started teaching in 2000, Loomis wore a baseball T-shirt and blue jeans. She took a pie to the face during a celebration of a school-wide fundraiser to raise money for playground equipment.

In her early years, Loomis made copies by filling a cylinder with ink and hand-cranking copies and wrote on a chalkboard. Now teachers send documents from their computers to a copy machine, and erase boards and markers have replaced chalk and chalkboards.

But 5-year-olds are the same, she said.

"Kids are kids," she said. "They get so excited about the smallest things."

Loomis described the George staff as a family, gathering each year with parents and community members to provide children with a stocking.

The project started after Loomis was inspired at a Champion for Kids meeting she attended with her principal and a counselor. She knew they could accept a challenge to help children.

A team gathered in the library to stuff Christmas bags for children in families who needed help the first year of the program.

The project expanded the following year to reach all the children at George, with women from Cross Pointe Community Church in Springdale making small stockings for each child. J.V. Manufacturing assisted with buying gifts. Others donated food.

For some children, those stockings have been Christmas for their families, she said.

"I don't like getting the credit," Loomis said, adding the Christmas project would not happen without support of the school administration, community volunteers, teachers and parents. "It's a time that we're all together."

Loomis felt it was time for her to retire."Right now people are still going to miss me," she said. Her friends are entering retirement, and she hopes to have more time with her three grandchildren -- two granddaughters in Texas and a grandson in Tennessee.

But leaving a career she has loved is hard, she said.

A dream career

While cleaning out his classroom at Rogers High School last week, Long wore a T-shirt that conveyed some of his personality. The shirt read, "Never underestimate an old man with a chemistry degree."

Anyone who knows Long probably would not dare underestimate him.

His resume includes a Presidential Award of Excellence for teaching science and a Milken Family Foundation Educator Award, which came with a $25,000 prize. In 2000 he became the first teacher in Rogers to earn National Board certification.

"I've had a career I never could have dreamed of," Long said.

Long, 62, decided he wanted to teach when he was in high school. His ninth-grade English teacher at Magnolia High School had a positive influence on his life, inspiring Long to want to do the same for others someday, he said.

For 41 years Long taught science -- mostly chemistry, but also some biology. The first 14 years were in Alvin, Texas. He and his wife, Lea, moved to Rogers in 1989 to be closer to family. He taught one year in Bentonville before taking a job at Rogers High.

Long had a tradition of making tie-dye shirts with students, an activity that covers scientific concepts such as solubility.

He decided shortly after spring break to retire. He looks forward to spending more time with family, fixing up a used motor home he has bought, and working in his yard and his workshop.

There was an education-related reason for his decision, too. New state science standards, which he helped write, will go into effect in the 2018-19 school year, pending state approval. The changes will require a huge time investment designing new lessons, he said.

He won't be entirely disconnected from education. He is president-elect of the Arkansas Science Teachers Association.

Long said he will miss working with his students and colleagues but won't miss grading papers, trying to motivate disengaged students and parents or the growing cycle of testing.

A couple of weeks ago, Long received an email from a student he had about 30 years ago in Texas. This man went into teaching as a second career and told Long he wanted to thank him for being such a good influence on him.

Long was stunned the man had tracked him down after so many years.

"The thing that will stick in my mind is the students," he said. "Some you do not realize what an influence you've had until much later."

'He has patience'

Kirker has been an elementary school teacher for 38 years, but he also carries green business cards that identify him as "The Furniture Guy."

He has restored, bought and sold antique furniture for about as long as he has taught. It's a hobby that's served as an effective stress buster.

"I call it a distraction," he said.

Soon he'll have a lot more time for that hobby. He's decided this is his last year in education.

Kirker, 61, grew up in Fort Scott, Kan., about two hours north of Bentonville. He made $9,200 in his first year as a teacher at Bentonville's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School back in 1978.

"I thought that was a fortune," he said.

Kirker now lives in Gravette and teaches fourth grade at Elm Tree Elementary School, where he's worked since it opened 20 years ago. He's spent his entire career in the Bentonville School District, teaching second, third, fourth and fifth grades, as well as gifted and talented and English as a second language students. He's worked for seven principals and eight superintendents.

This is the last year Elm Tree will operate under the nontraditional calendar, which offers a shorter summer break and more frequent breaks throughout the school year than the traditional calendar. The district is putting all schools on the same calendar starting this fall, a change that was a big factor in Kirker's choice to retire.

Kirker's retirement is a huge loss for the school, said Tiffany Chambliss, Elm Tree's bookkeeper. Chambliss is not only a co-worker of Kirker's, but a former student of his. She had him for third grade in the early 1980s at R.E. Baker Elementary School.

"It's hard to think about him leaving," Chambliss said. "He's one of a kind. The district is losing a great teacher."

His current students appreciate him, too. Emily Yang, 10, joined Kirker's class in January after switching schools. She recently wrote a letter to Kirker thanking him for making her feel so welcome in his classroom.

"He's really nice to me. He has patience with new students like me," Emily said.

Kirker's wife, Sara Kirker, is also a longtime teacher in Bentonville. She teaches art at Apple Glen Elementary School.

He said he'll miss the students, whom he hugs or fist-bumps on their way out of school each day.

"But I won't miss the routine of everything having to be down to the minute," he said.

Rooted in Root

Rosso, 59, said she loves Root Elementary.

She was a student there from first through sixth grades, eventually becoming a substitute teacher. Rosso began teaching second grade there in the 1981-82 school year.

Her last day of school last week was fun and exciting, but a little hard on children who thrive on structure and routine, Rosso said. Her students brought board games to play Wednesday morning. She brought out a dog puppet to act as Hank the Cowdog while she read a story from one of author John R. Erickson's books.

She grabbed her pupils' noses as she read, she said.

Rosso used a school postal system she started 25 years ago to teach children about writing letters. The post office donated a blue mailbox, a letter sorter and U.S. Postal Service mail bags. Each classroom has a mailbox with an address. Rosso's classroom address was 2 Mercury Ave. Sun City, CA 92801.

"It's a fun way to incorporate letter writing and addressing envelopes," she said. "They can write to anybody in the school."

Rosso wonders, though, if those skills are becoming out of date with the prevalence of email and other electronic forms of communication.

She remembers a fourth-grade teacher inspiring her to want to be a teacher. Rosso had first-year teachers from first through third grade and remembers wanting to be home with her younger brothers. She would cry until her teachers called her mother to come pick her up.

In fourth grade, her mother made sure she was assigned to Vashti Washburn, a veteran teacher who was loving, but stern. Rosso started her crying routine, but this teacher didn't call her mother. Washburn was Rosso's favorite teacher, she said.

Rosso adopted Washburn's firm approach, especially when facing a child who cries to go home.

Challenging students love Rosso the most, said Cheri Murphy, a second-grade teacher at Root. Rosso has a structured, loving approach to working with them. She sets high expectations for them.

Rosso, Murphy and Irene Adams, the third member of the second-grade team at Root, are known as the "five o'clock club" because they frequently stayed working in their classrooms in the evenings and on weekends.

Rosso has no children of her own. She considered her students her children, she said.

"It doesn't seem real yet," Rosso said Thursday. "Usually I have my room cleaned up. I'm in no hurry. I don't want to turn in my key."

NW News on 05/30/2016

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